Adsorption Equilibrium and Kinetics of CO2 and H2O on Activated Carbon

Activated carbon is well applied in pressure swing adsorption process for CO2 capture. The real flue gas contains saturated water vapor as well. In this study, single and binary components adsorption equilibrium and kinetics of H2O/CO2 were studied according to their adsorption isotherms and breakthrough curves. Results showed that activated carbon could adsorb high amount of CO2 and low amount of N2, that showed a good CO2/N2 selectivity. As activated carbon contains the functional groups, the activated carbon can adsorb large amount water at high water partial pressure. However, because of different CO2 adsorption mechanism, water adsorption has almost no impact on CO2 adsorption on activated carbon. The kinetics study showed that CO2 adsorption velocity on activated carbon is much faster than that of H2O.